Sunday’s game is still two days away, but we already know the answer to the most crucial question surrounding Super Bowl XLIV:

Yes, the Clydesdales will return.

No disrespect intended toward the Indianapolis Colts or the New Orleans Saints, but football’s only a game. The true goal of Sunday’s extravaganza is a more serious business: advertising. At least that’s the opinion of most Americans. In a Nielsen survey last month, 51 percent said they enjoy the commercials more than the game.

Our ad addiction is so severe, there’s even a Web site —Spotbowl.com— dedicated to Super Bowl commercials. After last year’s game, 100,000 people visited Spotbowl to vote for their favorite spots.

This year’s commercial lineup is sure to include crowd-pleasers — “The Simpsons” will plug cola while a beaver violinist will perform for job siteMonster.com— and controversy. Ignoring protests from abortion rights groups, CBS approved an anti-abortion message from Heisman winner Tim Tebow. The network, though, refused to air a 30-second ad from ManCrunch, a gay dating service, saying it does not meet “broadcast standards.”

But the biggest ad buy belongs to the maker of Budweiser and Bud Light, whose most famous ads have starred those massive draft horses. Anheuser-Busch, part of the world’s largest brewing company, bought five minutes for a total of nine ads.

That’s not small beer, even though the recession may have forced CBS to back down from last year’s record rates of $3 million per 30-second spot. The network hasn’t released figures yet, but advertising professionals say this year’s average is closer to $2.8 million for 30 seconds.

Up or down, though, the rates hardly matter to the major beer companies.

“This is a no-brainer for them,” said Mark Richwine, Spotbowl’s executive creative director, noting that an estimated one-third of all Americans will watch Sunday’s game and many will crack open a brewski or two. “You’re hitting people at the right time and in the right place.”

“Oh, my God, that doesn’t mean anything,” said Jeremy Mullman, who covers beer for Advertising Age. “It means you can drink it without dying.”

And then there’s the fact that mass-produced American lagers such as Budweiser suffered through a difficult 2009. Last year, the entire American industry notched a 2.2 percent decline in sales volume. Small-batch craft brewers, though, saw their sales climb 1.7 percent. Still, Anheuser-Busch sells almost half of all beer in the United States.

“Their challenge is to keep the defectors within the Anheuser-Busch family,” noted George Belch, a professor of marketing at San Diego State University.

With its massive TV audience, the Super Bowl is also the perfect time to test new products — last year, it was Bud Light Lime; this year, Select 55, a low-cal brew. And introduce or drive home the latest tagline (“Budweiser: It’s What We Do.”). And stress the heartland values. And embrace romance — or at least sex. And make people laugh.

That’s a lot to accomplish in a few seconds, but beer companies and their ad agencies continue to spin fresh gold out of this straw.

“Over the years,” Mullman said, “there have been more hits than misses.”

Many of those hits involved the Clydesdales, horses that have become emblematic of Budweiser as well as reliable vehicles for heartwarming messages. In January 2002, the herd somberly walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and bowed toward the site of the recently destroyed World Trade Center.

“It was risky to do that,” Mullman said, “but most people felt they pulled it off.”

So it came as a shock when Anheuser-Busch announced last month that the steeds would sit out this year’s Super Bowl. What followed — protests from fans; a Bud-sponsored poll pitting Clydesdale-free ads against one with the lovable nags; and yesterday’s announcement that, hey, guess what, the horses are back! — was less shocking than predictable.

“It was a little convenient,” Mullman said.

Convenient and a possible way for Anheuser-Busch to get more bang for its Super Bowl bucks. That poll? It was on Budweiser’s Facebook page. Increasingly, breweries seek to send consumers online to review or critique the ads. “This generates hundreds of thousands of impressions after the game.”

Those impressions vary, depending on the beer brand. Super Bowl ads for lagers and ales tend to aim at the heartstrings; ads for light beers, the funny bone.

But one person’s humor is another company’s publicity nightmare. During the 2004 Super Bowl, a Bud Lite spot featured a man and a woman on a moonlit sleigh ride. They were romantic. The horse was aromatic.

“For sheer shock value, the flatulent horse cut through the clutter,” Richwine said. “Universally, though, people thought it went over the line.”

Still, this is far from the most notorious beer ad. Because Anheuser-Busch annually buys all the Super Bowl ad space CBS allots to beer, Coors and Miller have to rely on ads in regional markets or nationwide before and after the game. Perhaps this explains the infamous commercial aired during the January 2003 NFL playoffs.

Two curvaceous young women begin arguing over Miller Lite (we can’t hear them, but this appears to be another “tastes great” vs. “less filling” debate). The spat escalates, they shred each other’s clothing, fall into a fountain, then — down to their underwear — roll through a mud bog.

“Cat Fight,” as this spot is known, is “widely regarded as beer advertising’s nadir,” Mullman said.

Until, at least, this weekend.

“It’s anybody’s guess whether they are going to push the envelope,” Belch said.